Cover Crop Adoption Slows According to Data

By David I. Gustafson, Special to DTN/Progressive Farmer

Editor's Note: David Gustafson is an independent scientist who serves as OpTIS project director at the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC). He prepared this look at cover crop adoption for DTN to both reveal concerns about the drop in cover crop usage and to note the need for more timely recording of cover crop data. DTN is a partner in the Farmers for Soil Health collaborative and a supporter of climate-smart agricultural efforts. For more information on OpTIS, see here: https://www.ctic.org/….

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In February, USDA released its long-awaited 2022 Census of Agriculture, which has included since 2012 a question on farmer use of cover crops. As indicated in the table accompanying this article (on online platforms), the Ag Census findings for 16 Midwestern states suggest the rate of adoption of cover crops across this important geography has measurably slowed.

Cover crops top most lists of climate-smart practices in row crops. In addition to their more recently perceived climate benefits -- sequestering around a third of a ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per acre annually -- they have long been known to have many other benefits to both farmers and the environment, including improvement of water quality and soil health, weed control, reduction of soil loss, enhancement of biodiversity and more.

Given these clear environmental and agronomic advantages, multiple groups have established ambitious targets for the adoption of cover crops. For instance, Farmers for Soil Health (https://farmersforsoilhealth.com/…) has a goal to reach 30 million acres of cover crops nationally by 2030. The Midwest Row Crop Collaborative (https://midwestrowcrop.org/…) has a similar 2030 goal for the Midwest.

Looking at individual results within each Midwestern state, it is apparent that slowing has occurred nearly everywhere across the region. Only four states (Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin) experienced faster growth in cover crop acres during the more recent five-year period, and two states (Kentucky and Tennessee) experienced a decline in the absolute number of cover crop acres in 2022 versus 2017.

The slowed rate of cover crop adoption demonstrated by the data is concerning. Cover crops are essential in building on-farm resilience, as the benefits of cover crops (enhanced water quality and soil health, for example) can accrue to larger trends in a farmer's operation and across the agriculture sector. More resilient farms can help secure our food systems while supporting our ecosystems, and cover crops help us build resilience. In this light, cover crops are an essential piece of our food security and our planetary health.

It should be noted that these comparisons are of questionable statistical significance because the Ag Census provides only one data snapshot every five years for any particular geography. What stakeholders urgently need is annual data collected and reported in a timelier manner (with less latency) to guide policy and other actions, as well as to track the progress now being made through the major public and private investments in support of cover crop adoption.

However, despite the need for more data, the trend in cover crop adoption remains the same, and we have a shared responsibility across the industry to promote cover crop adoption to build on-farm resilience and secure our land-based supply chains. To do this, we must have access to granular data and programming to understand our progress to date and accelerate action.

Tracking and publicly promoting the adoption of such conservation practices is the premise upon which the non-profit Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) (https://www.ctic.org/…) was founded in 1982. For the last 14 years, CTIC, in partnership with Regrow Ag, The Nature Conservancy and other partners (see end of article for a more complete list), has developed the Operational Tillage Information System (OpTIS). OpTIS uses publicly available remote sensing data to track the adoption of conservation tillage and cover crops and then uses these data as input to the denitrification-decomposition (DNDC) model to report multiple outcomes relevant to the climate mitigation aspects of those practices.

OpTIS methodology continues to be refined by Regrow. Version 3.0 (released in January 2023) gave lower estimates on the level of adoption of cover crops than reflected by the Ag Census. Version 4.0 (released in September 2023) uses improved algorithms that provide estimates in close agreement with the Ag Census, and even more finely tuned data will be coming later this year (Version 5.0 is currently scheduled for a September 2024 release).

OpTIS data (Version 4.0) for row crops in the lower 48 states 2015-2021 are currently available on the CTIC website (https://www.ctic.org/…), made possible through a grant from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research and the Walton Family Foundation. These data are widely used by a variety of stakeholders:

-- Researchers, modelers and agencies (state and federal) have used the data in models to monitor trends and estimate conservation gains and measure progress toward achieving conservation and programmatic goals in specific geographies (Illinois 2023 Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy Report: https://epa.illinois.gov/…).

-- Conservation organizations use the data to target education and outreach activities aimed at further promotion efforts that encourage the adoption of conservation practices.

-- The U.S. government uses OpTIS data to leverage a wide variety of efforts, from planning dredging strategies (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) to a host of conservation (USDA) and regulatory (EPA) activities in direct support of multiple mission-critical goals.

CTIC is now working through these many stakeholders to help secure funding for annual updates of the important OpTIS dataset for the years 2022 through 2027, coinciding with the historic appropriations of more than $20B in public funds to help drive practices like cover crops from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. If you are interested in learning how you could help support this effort, please reach out at https://www.ctic.org/….

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David I Gustafson, PhD, is an independent scientist who serves as OpTIS project director at CTIC. Organizations that have supported the development of OpTIS included USDA, NASA, Bayer, Corteva, Enterprise, Ecosystem Services Market Consortium, Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, Howard G. Buffet Foundation, John Deere, Monsanto, The Mosaic Company, The Nature Conservancy, Simplot, Soil Health Partnership, Syngenta, Walmart Foundation and Walton Family Foundation.

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